Moving Towards Mobile Recruiting

It’s quite possible that the subject of “mobile” in recruitment discussions comes second only to “social” in 2011.

And since mobile is, arguably, a social platform for social recruitment; if so, it appears that mobile marketing & recruiting already is the hottest topic of 2011… a trend that will continue in 2012.

Recently, I had the distinct privilege of being allowed to take part in BrazenCareerist’s “Brazen U” & came into acquaintance with Kane Cochran, VP of Digital Innovation & Mobile at Hodes.

He was presenting on Mobile Marketing strategies & said something early on in his presentation that really stuck with me:

“This really is sort of the year of mobile and the decade of mobile or the month of mobile and it really it’s just the time for mobile. And these statistics really support that.

There are a lot of mobile users, 5.3 billion users online with mobile phones at this point, 468 million new smart phones are going to come on the market this year, and that’s really important because the smart phones are what are driving all of the adoption around mobile web.

They’re outpacing the feature phones now. And we’ve got to keep that in mind when we’re developing our mobile websites.

Five hundred and thirty million mobile web users. So again, we got a half of billion people accessing the mobile web. This really highlights and really brings to the forefront the fact that having a mobile optimized website is where you need to be at this point.

But only 29 percent of the top 10,000 websites actually have a mobile version and when we looked at careers specifically, there was a stat that came out the other day that said only 7 percent of careers sites were actually mobile enabled.

I think that might be closer to 10 percent, but what we’re still talking about one out of every 10 careers sites is mobile enabled.

And that presents an opportunity for organizations (progressive ones, at least) to become mobile optimized, be mobile friendly and set yourself apart right now as leaders in the space.“

He’s right, of course.  Mobile  is an opportunity to differentiate; but more than that, it’s a transformation to our professional world that we can no longer ignore.

Just as the internet changed the way we attracted candidates from newsprint to online; the mobile phone is revolutionizing the way employers must market to candidates.

Close to 80% of job seekers use mobile applications to look for a job and quite frankly, the stats on speed and retention of mobile recruitment messages by candidates vs. traditional recruiting methods is stunning.

But, if your Company hasn’t made the move to mobile in your Talent Acquisition strategies, consider the results of a survey conducted by PotentialPark of over 30,ooo global  job seekers:

• 57% of job seekers would like to be able to conduct their job search online
• 51 % wish to receive job alerts about new positions  via SMS/mobile email
• 39% desire to track their progress through the application/recruiting process via mobile
• 39% want to see & a mobile-friendly, online calendar of recruiting/career events for target companies in their job search

If job seekers want these things, then it stands to reason they’re already trying to do these activities as a part of their job search & so companies that developed these components that let them have an edge.

Moving Towards Mobile: #TNL Preview (12.14.11)

With more candidates more mobile than ever before, telecom and talent are increasingly converging.

This week’s #TNL chat will look at the impact of mobile technologies on recruiting and job search, its impact on workplace culture and how companies can dial in success when building and executing a mobile recruiting strategy.

Topics we’ll explore will include geo-location services, mobile career sites, text message marketing and cool tools.

To help us take a deeper look at how to level the playing field and “give the people what they want” (so to speak), grab your smartphone and join me, Craig Fisher, Matt Charney and special guest Kane Cochran to discuss the following questions tonight on #TNL Chat at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT.

Click here to listen live or follow the conversation on Twitter using the #TNL hashtag.

Q1. What are some of the key market trends or demand driving employers to care about mobile recruiting adoption?

Q2. How does mobile fit into a larger hiring or online recruiting strategy?  How does mobile differ from other online recruitment initiatives?

Q3.  What do companies need to do in order to successfully launch a mobile recruiting initiative?  How is success measured?

Q4. What are some of the biggest misconceptions or myths surrounding mobile recruitment?

Q5. What are some of the best “cool tools,” vendors or technologies that HR and recruiting practitioners should know in the mobile space?

Q6.       How do you see mobile recruiting evolving over the next year?  Five years?

Monster is proud to support TalentNet Live (#TNL), a community  for talent managers and human capital leaders featuring some of the brightest minds and biggest innovations in the HR industry dedicated to continuing the conversation – and learning – for practitioners around topics like social media, social recruiting and HR training.

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About the Author

Crystal Miller has presented and participated in numerous Group Training Sessions, Recruiting Panels and Job Seeker Workshops & recognized as an industry expert and opinions on HR/Recruiting issues sought out/featured by Hanley-Wood Publications, Clear Channel, and multiple business journals and professional publications. She conducts recruitment/marketing program audits, strategy creation, campaign execution and candidate community building in addition to Recruitment Training for mid-sized businesses across the United States. You can find her on Twitter @theonecrystal or at http://www.theonecrystal.info.